Heard the story about the ashes spreading mishap at Download Festival Melbourne?

Every year at music festivals there’s always a story that makes you go, “what the?” Whether it be the guy who let off a flare in the middle of the moshpit or the guy who drunkenly climbed on top of a tent to watch a band with no one in front of him… well this one certainly takes the cake.

Our resident goatee-sporting metalhead Jim ‘Plugga’ Birkin aka @KeepnTabs73 had settled in to watch UK duo Slaves again, after being blown away by their performance in Perth prior to the event, only this time he set up shop to the right of the stage near two inebriated Nepalese fellows who were carrying an interesting package with them… We got Plugga to delve into the encounter:

“There I was minding my own business drinking beer at the front barrier. I talk shit with anyone near me usually and the guys just happened to be near me and looked interesting. I noticed they were holding something bulky so I had to investigate. Turns out it was a big plastic clip locked bag full of ashes, like bulging. I legit thought it was grey cocaine and when I asked them about it, one of the guys said ‘it was his dead mate’s ashes'”

Turns out, as expected, there was a bit of a language barrier between Plugga and the guys, but, as the story goes, they were wanting to spread their mate’s ashes during Slayer, as he was a huge fan. But, no matter what our guy tried to do to explain they were in the wrong place, they didn’t want a bar of it:

“I tried telling them they were at Slaves and not Slayer, Slayer wasn’t on until the end of the day, but that didn’t stop them… They launched their dead mate into the air and he… umm… his ashes went everywhere, but more directly into the face of an unsuspecting security guard who has no idea what the fuck was going on”

By this point, Plugga was in hysterics at what just happened and while the two guys walked off, still carrying some of their mate’s remains with them, the bamboozled security guard came up trying to work out what just happened:

“Upon telling the security guard what was all over his face, his reaction was ‘OH WHAT THE FUCK?’ I grabbed the head honcho security guard and told him what it was too, you know, so he could give his mate shit for the rest of the day hahaha”

“I’ve heard they did something similar at Anthrax too so he must have been a big metalhead, but what a fuckin send off!”

The original story was supposed to end up in our extensive coverage of Download Festival (check that out here) but since it was snapped up earlier elsewhere, we thought we’d offer a bit more insight to events for those wanting to know.

RIP BBQ Dude and well done to Slaves for gaining a new, unintentional fan!